Ranaudo still capable of fulfilling his potential for Red Sox

Sunday

Jan 20, 2013 at 3:55 PM

BOSTON -- Don't forget about Anthony Ranaudo.With all of the talk from Ben Cherington about building the next great Red Sox team, talk backed up by the refusal of Cherington to trade away any of his best...

Brian MacPherson Journal Sports Writer brianmacp

BOSTON -- Don't forget about Anthony Ranaudo.

With all of the talk from Ben Cherington about building the next great Red Sox team, talk backed up by the refusal of Cherington to trade away any of his best pitching prospects for veterans who might help his team this season, names like Matt Barnes, Rubby De La Rosa and Allen Webster have become well-known to Red Sox fans.

But it was just a year ago at this time that Ranaudo was considered the top pitching prospect in the Boston farm system. He was last year what Barnes is now -- a first-round draft pick primed for Double-A after mostly cruising through two Single-A stops.

And while last season was a lost season for Ranaudo, he's still just 23 years old. There's no reason not to expect him to bounce back if he can stay healthy this year.

"It's unfortunate when you get hurt and everything, but I learned a lot from it, learned a lot of things to keep me healthy," Ranaudo said during a Jimmy Fund event near Fenway Park on Saturday. "Hopefully I can use those this year to stay healthy and make every start that I can make."

A myriad of injuries last season limited Ranaudo to nine Double-A starts. A groin strain left him in Fort Myers, Fla., until mid-May, and what looked like an innocuous case a case of dead arm in July wound up wiping out the rest of his season. He finished the year with a 6.69 ERA in 37 2/3 innings, and he walked as many hitters (27) as he struck out.

"Even when I hurt my elbow in college, my velocity didn't suffer like it suffered this year," he said. "It was pretty noticeable this year. You could see it in my mound demeanor. I pitch off confidence, so when I didn't have that, it wasn't me. I was trying to fine-tune everything, trying to place the ball where I needed to put it. You could see it in my stat line. I think I had more walks compared to strikeouts than I've ever had in my whole career. It just made me not the pitcher that I am. I'm an aggressive guy. I go after guys. When I didn't have my fastball, I wasn't able to do that."

When Ranaudo went to Puerto Rico in November to try to get some innings under his belt, a recurrence of his groin injury shut him down after just four starts.

Before he had to be shut down, however, he rediscovered what it was like to pitch effectively again. That he had a 6.75 ERA in Puerto Rico doesn't tell the entire story; six of the seven earned runs he allowed in his four starts came in one awful outing. Before that start, he'd thrown three hitless innings. After that start, he threw four one-hit innings. He struck out seven and walked two in 9 1/3 innings.

More importantly, he could recognize himself as a pitcher again.

"I was back to who I was," he said. "I was throwing with much better velocity. I felt way more confident out there. I was able to be much more confident and go after guys. Knowing that my shoulder is good and that I'm healthy and I can pitch the way I know I can pitch, it was a huge confidence boost for me."

Ranaudo will go to spring training determined to avoid enduring another lost season. His physical therapy work in Baton Rouge, La., has focused on his hip flexor in order to put less stress on his groin -- a correlation he never knew existed. He's strengthening his shoulder. He's on a mission to get through this season healthy.

If he can do that, there's no reason he he couldn't be pitching for Triple-A Pawtucket before the end of the year.